This section describes how to install the CernVM-FS client. The
CernVM-FS client is supported on x86, x86_64, and ARMv7 architectures
running Scientific Linux 4-7, Ubuntu \(\geq12.04\), SLES 11, 12 and
openSuSE 13.1, Fedora 25 and 26, or Mac OS X \(\geq 10.12\). There is
experimental support for AArch64 and Power 8.

The CernVM-FS source code and binary packages are available on our
website. Binary
packages are produced for rpm, dpkg, and Mac OS X (.pkg). Packages for 64 bit and
32 bit Scientific Linux 5 and 6 and 64 bit Scientific Linux 7 are available as a
yum repository. Ubuntu and Debian
packages are available through our
apt repository.
The cvmfs-release packages can be used to add these yum/apt repositories
to the local package sources list. The cvmfs-release packages are available
on our download page.

The CernVM-FS client is not relocatable and needs to be installed under
/usr. On Intel architectures, it needs a gcc \(\geq 4.2\) compiler,
on ARMv7 a gcc \(\geq 4.7\) compiler. In order to compile and
install from sources, use the following cmake command:

If yum does not show the latest packages, clean the yum cache by
sudoyumcleanall. Packages can be also installed with rpm instead
with the command rpm-vi. On Ubuntu, use

sudoapt-getinstallcvmfscvmfs-config-default

If apt does not show the latest packages, run sudoapt-getupdate
before. Packages can be also installed with dpkg instead with the command
dpkg-i.

Step 2

For the base setup, run cvmfs_configsetup. Alternatively, you
can do the base setup by hand: ensure that /cvmfs/etc/auto.cvmfs is set
in /etc/auto.master and that the autofs service is running. If you
migrate from a previous version of CernVM-FS, check the release notes
if there is anything special to do for migration.

Step 3

Create /etc/cvmfs/default.local and open the file for editing.

Step 4

Select the desired repositories by setting
CVMFS_REPOSITORIES=repo1,repo2,.... For ATLAS, for instance, set

CVMFS_REPOSITORIES=atlas.cern.ch,atlas-condb.cern.ch,grid.cern.ch

Specify the HTTP proxy servers on your site with

CVMFS_HTTP_PROXY="http://myproxy1:port|http://myproxy2:port"

For the syntax of more complex HTTP proxy settings, see
Network Settings. Make sure your local proxy servers allow access to all
the Stratum 1 web servers (more on proxy configuration here). For Cern
repositories, the Stratum 1 web servers are listed in
/etc/cvmfs/domain.d/cern.ch.conf.

If you’re unsure about the proxy names, set
CVMFS_HTTP_PROXY=DIRECT. This should only be done for a small number
of clients (< 5), because large numbers can put a heavy load on the Stratum 1
servers and result, amongst others, in poorer performance for the client.

Step 5

Check if CernVM-FS mounts the specified repositories by
cvmfs_configprobe. If the probe fails, try to restart autofs with
sudoserviceautofsrestart.

The CernVM-FS repositories are located under /cvmfs. Each repository is
identified by a fully qualified repository name. The fully qualified
repository name consists of a repository identifier and a domain name,
similar to DNS records [Mockapetris87]. The domain part of the fully qualified
repository name indicates the location of repository creation and
maintenance. For the ATLAS experiment software, for instance, the fully
qualified repository name is atlas.cern.ch although the hosting web
servers are spread around the world.

Mounting and un-mounting of the CernVM-FS is controlled by autofs and
automount. That is, starting from the base directory /cvmfs different
repositories are mounted automatically just by accessing them. For
instance, running the command ls/cvmfs/atlas.cern.ch will mount the
ATLAS software repository on the fly. This directory gets automatically
unmounted after some automount-defined idle time.

CernVM-FS gathers its configuration parameter from various configuration
files that can overwrite each others settings (default configuration,
domain specific configuration, local setup, …). To show the effective
configuration for repository.cern.ch, run

cvmfs_configshowconfigrepository.cern.ch

In order to exclude autofs/automounter as a source of problems, you can
try to mount repository.cern.ch manually by

mkdir-p/mnt/cvmfsmount-tcvmfsrepository.cern.ch/mnt/cvmfs

In order to exclude SELinux as a source of problems, you can try
mounting after SELinux has been disabled by

/usr/sbin/setenforce0

Once you sorted out a problem, make sure that you do not get the
original error served from the file system buffers by

serviceautofsrestart

In case you need additional assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact
us at cernvm.support@cern.ch. Together with
the problem description, please send the system information tarball
created by cvmfs_configbugreport.